So, I got a teeny bit of hassle on Twitter the other day, for daring to say that the loot box system in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War wasn't an issue for me.

​I don't find it a problem for two reasons: 1) I've got bigger things to worry about, and 2) My crappy BT "Infinity" broadband is so slow that I can't be arsed with downloading the latest PS4 network update, so I can't use the game's online features. And besides, I think Shadow of War is a game in which it really is easy to ignore the microtransactions embedded within.

You see, as I get older my priorities have shifted. Many of the things which used to annoy me - or, at least, the things I told myself I was annoyed by - no longer do. Conversely, I get really, really angry over stuff that - I think - properly matters.

It's just a consequence of life delivering its knocks, and realising what's important. Plus, I know myself more, so I no longer feign irritation in a bid to find out what really galls me. Turns out it was the big stuff that mattered all along; family, injustice, fairness. Everything else just falls into the cracks.

​And that includes microtransactions in triple-A games.

But get this: something that really matters to me is Star Wars. Dick around with my Star Wars and you'll get me right riled up. And this is why, when I read the news that Electronic Arts has shut down Amy Hennig's highly anticipated Star Wars game for "refocusing", my blood boiled.

Let me tell you: there was no way that bit of news was falling into any of my cracks.

So, after the NES Classic and Super NES Classic, the rumours are wafting that Nintendo is planning some sort of Game Boy Classic.

​It makes sense; nearly 120 million Game Boys were sold worldwide, and it was the machine that all good folk owned - from kids to their parents to First Ladies and Last Ladies.

If it is happening, presumably it won't be miniaturised like its sister machines - because that would be ridiculous - and it had better not require batteries, and needs to have a decent, back-lit screen, and a little vent that dispenses an edible protein paste called "Miyamoto Mulch".

What games would Nintendo stuff into the pelvic keyhole of this so-called "Pale Henry"? Here are the runners and riders.

I've written before about how dull I find Lord of the Rings. Having tried as a teenager to read the books, and given up, until the films came out everything I knew about Middle Earth was taken from the ZX Spectrum adventure The Hobbit. What I knew was this: Thorin likes singing about gold, and something about a tunnel-like hall.

It was only upon seeing the first Lord of the Rings movie that I even realised I was steeped in more of the mythos than I realised; all those Dungeons & Dragons campaigns that I played as a kid were essentially LOTR games in all but name. Though, at least the way we played it, with more abundant availability of magical rings.

From there I realised that Tolkein - and I deliberately misspell his name here to irritate Lord of the Rings fans - had pretty much invented the fantasy genre (even if he borrowed liberally from myth and folklore). While this led me to have a greater degree of respect for the books he wrote, it irritated me how derivative the genre was.  

I mean, this is why I can't bring myself to watch Game of Thrones, which I gather is essentially Lord of the Rings with boobs and gore and that, so people can kid themselves they're watching something grown-up and sophisticated.

And yet, weirdly perhaps, I really, really loved Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, the predecessor to Shadow of War. ​Although if you want to tell me how the story progresses in this sequel... forget it. I skipped most of the cutscenes, with their tedious portentous dialogue. Indeed, at least the previous game had something akin to an emotional grounding for your character, who was freshly dead and brought back to life by becoming a half-ghost thing. 

Here you're straight into the achingly self-important cut-scenes about stuff that I found it impossible to care about. It was as much fun as scrunching up some cardboard and rubbing it into my eyes and ears. Fortunately, the game all that bollocks is shackled to is every bit as enjoyable as Shadow of Mordor.

Well, there you have it. The final regular episode of Mr Biffo's Found Footage. By the time next week's finale goes out, you'll have had well over three hours of the series from me; that's over three times as much as I originally promised on Kickstarter. I hope you all feel it has been worth your investment. I know it has been worth mine. Let's do some more, yeah?

It might not have been a massive viral hit - frankly, the eps are probably too long for that - but I'm very, very proud of it. It's my favourite thing I've ever done - by far. 

​I really hope you've been doing your best to piece together the story, along with the weirdness and funnies... but if not, don't worry. Next week's episode explains everything, and though it's part of the series - and will reward those who've been watching closely - it's also designed to be standalone, so new viewers can check it out. I think it might just blow your mind...

Anyhow. Enough waffle. If you wish to discuss the episodes, I suggest you head over to Facebook, where the Brannigan's Vortex group share their theories as to the greater conspiracy. Or post a comment below. 

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read on unless you have watched Goujon Day!

I watched The Book of Henry at the weekend. You might've heard of it. Directed by Colin Trevorrow - whose Safety Not Guaranteed I really liked, and whose Jurassic World I liked a bit less - it was mauled by critics.

Coincidentally, or not, the release of the film - and its disastrous box-office haul - was shortly followed by the news that Trevorrow had been replaced as the director of Star Wars Episode 9.

It's a bizarre film. Any individual moment sort of worked, but taken as a whole it was all over the place, lurching from whimsy to darkness from one scene to the next. And with an extremely questionable moment where Sarah Silverman - her bosoms practically spilling out of her top - kisses a 12 year-old boy on the lips as he lays dying in a hospital.

Also all over the place - in a literal sense - was star Naomi Watts as she attempted to "act" playing a video game. You see, in a bid to explain why her character is later able to handle a high-powered sniper rifle (don't ask), she's shown as being hooked on Gears of War.

The way in which she plays Gears is to hold the controller at chest-height, while jabbing at the air with it, swaying from side-to-side as her face twitches with aggressive tics. The only person I've ever seen play a video game like that was my mother, circa 1982, when she attempted to get to grips with Space Invaders on our Atari 2600.

This wrong-headed depiction of video gamery irritated me more than any of the other billions of flaws the movie achieves. In fact, it made me ask this: why can't "other" media do gaming accurately?

As I get older, it's harder to see the world with fresh eyes. Actually, now that I think about it... as obvious and predictable as that statement might be... it's not entirely true. Having written it, it feels like something I should say, whereas in some respects, I'm actually less cynical than I used to be. A veil has lifted, in some respects, and I think I see the world more clearly nowadays.

There's a sort of knee-jerk thing that many of us do when we're younger where we just automatically pretend to hate on everything, because it's edgy and cool, and God forbid we actually like something. It's a form of armour; keep everything at arm's length, and it can't hurt you. Don't like anything, and nobody can make fun of you for the things you do like.

I don't do that anymore. I probably give stuff - and people - more benefit of the doubt than I once did, while also, hopefully, keeping my wits about me enough that I'm not surprised when I'm let down.

I see now that the world is a mix of bad and good. I believe that people are inherently decent, but that the system into which we're born is seriously, fundamentally, wrong. It devalues us as individuals, while gifting certain people with undue levels of power and significance.

I mean, I got validated on Twitter yesterday. I only applied because my attempts to get other validated Twitter users to notice Mr Biffo's Found Footage was falling on deaf ears, because, if you're validated, you can silence the tweets of the "non-entities" who don't have a Twitter tick.

Isn't that horrible? 

I get that validation works as a way for people in the public eye to protect their identities, but then being able to silence the noise of "plebs", so that they only listen to their fellow elites... ugh. I had a lot of people congratulate me on getting ticked-up, but it doesn't feel like an achievement so much as something I feel I've got no choice over. Nevertheless, that damn tick is symbolic of everything that grates on me in regard to our celebrity culture.

But that isn't what I wish to discuss today. I've started off on a completely different subject. What a terrible error.

​You see, something I do miss about being younger is that thrill of the new - and I wonder if today's gamers get to experience what I experienced.

This was a bastard of an episode to put together. Partly that was down to being ill at the moment, and partly it was down to having had much less stuff edited and ready to go for this episode; everything was in pieces, so there was more work to do than usual last week.

Anyhow. Enough waffle. If you wish to discuss the episodes, I suggest you head over to Facebook, where the Brannigan's Vortex group share their theories as to the greater conspiracy. Or post a comment below. 

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read on unless you have watched Brown Mirror!

Guest review by SUPER BAD ADVICE
​
While it has its fans, 2010’s Metroid: Other M was a bit of a ‘dandy’s hankerchief’. For starters it made tough-as-nails bounty hunter and original female gaming icon Samus Aran into a boring, whiny character obsessed with her former commander.
 
Worse still, it forced her to plod her way through a middling adventure with a forgettable supporting cast, a nonsensical F-grade Anime plot and cutscenes long enough to be timed by continental drift.
 
Given it came from the well-respected Team Ninja we all thought it was going to be fantastic, so the disappointment it was so much less than the sum of its parts was considerable. It was like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant expecting a delicious meal, and being served a photograph of a delicious meal and a bowl of stale breadsticks the waiter has just coughed on.

The Super NES is my favourite console of all time. You knew that already, right? For my money, it was the most perfect combination of hardware and software in gaming history. Nintendo's first-party exclusives are - mostly - beyond compare, but the system brought out the best in others too. Even the worst SNES games usually had a graphical boldness about them which somehow set them apart. 

For gamers in the UK, we also have the knowledge that we had the best version of the SNES. Yes, alright, it might've run slightly slower on our PAL TVs than those elsewhere in the world, but we had the rainbow joypad buttons! We had the bouncy curves! The American SNES was austere and unwelcoming in comparison.

Just because some idiot can run fast doesn't mean you'd want to go for a drink with them.

Regardless of whatever territory you were in, the Super NES had the best software line-up that has ever been made available - and Nintendo clearly knows it.

Having learned from the mistakes of last year's NES Classic Mini - too few to go around, and then abruptly yanked from stores - this time the company has seemingly ensured there's enough stock of its successor to meet demand. Well, almost. The point is, mine arrived on release day, and that's really all that matters.

And now? And now is my review of this thing which I am mentioning. Hello!

This has been a funny old week for Mr Biffo's Found Footage. As you may be aware, we finally got a bit of media interest - in the form of an article on Polygon.

Suffice to say, it has had an immediate noticeable effect on the show, with new people watching, a surge in YouTube subscribers, and... unfortunately... a lot of people thinking a) The series was about to end (you've at least three more eps to come), and b) That Charlie Brooker had more to do with it than he did.

It was a bit embarrassing for me, as it did look like I'd gone on and on about him in the interview for the article, when he was merely a backer. Though I do appreciate that Polygon were trying to find an angle that would get people interested - and there's no question that it worked. Thankfully, I dropped Charlie a line, and he is fine about it. Plus, I'm hugely grateful to Polygon for taking a punt on the show, when nobody else has done so.

The effect a bit of coverage has had already makes it all the more frustrating that I've struggled to get anywhere else to cover us... but... hopefully word of mouth is now spreading. We're not going anywhere, so over time I'm hopeful that more and more people will discover it, and enjoy it as a complete piece with a beginning, middle and end.

If you do want to feature Found Footage on your site, podcast, or whatevs... please drop me a line at digitiser2000@gmail.com

The response to this ep has surprised me. I was worried that - because it puts more of an emphasis on plot over funnies - it might turn people off, but it seems to be a favourite for a lot of you. Which means you're finally seeing the pieces of the puzzle coming together.

Anyhow. Enough waffle. If you wish to discuss the episodes, I suggest you head over to Facebook, where the Brannigan's Vortex group share their theories as to the greater conspiracy. Or post a comment below. I like hearing what you thought.

SPOILER WARNING: Do not read on unless you have watched Manorak!

Guest article by Super Bad Advice

When Destiny 2 came out, I offered to review it for Herr Biffo as what with all the excellent Found Footage stuff going on, as well as his secret training for a promotional appearance on Strictly Come Dancing dressed as a giant swan goujon doing the tango, his time hasn’t been available in binloads. Goujons have, but not time.
 
However, despite the busyness we hit on both doing a piece as we knew we were probably going to approach the game from 2 very different angles. You’ve probably already read Biffo’s review, so here’s mine – which, in somewhat of an achievement for a site that reviews games, is also not a review as such. Sorry.
 
You can go to any old gaming page and be told about how D2 looks great, plays beautifully, has tons more to do than the original, has more solid plans mapped out for future play and events, it’s easier than ever to hook up with other players to tackle the shared world content and so on.
 
To do another review like that would be retreading old ground, and wouldn’t tell you much more than you could get from press quotes off of adverts.
 
So instead, here’s what Destiny 2 is to me, and why. With further apologies as it all gets a bit personal (but don’t worry: not THAT personal – you won’t need wet wipes afterwards or anything).